


Matt's New Neighbour

by Celticas



Series: Soulmate Songs [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:43:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Meeting one person can completely change your opinion of having neighbours.





	1. Matt's Meeting

The apartment next to Matt had mercifully been empty for the three years that he had lived in the building. He had not had to content with someone else bustling around in an everyday way that still grated on his nerves, nor with someone going the other way and blaring music at all hours of the day and night ending with him in agonising pain. Yet another upside to having the apparently overwhelming light of the billboard across the road streaming into the two apartments on this side of the floor. On a Thursday that was cold and overcast, a promise of early snow, that changed.

Moving stiffly from half healed ribs, curtesy of some lucky hits from two men who thought the beating a couple of kids was a good way to spend a Friday night, he shuffled past the open door. He could feel cold air from outside flowing through the previously stuffy rooms and out into the corridor. The draft making him shiver. He could hear a small light footed person moving about the interior. Most likely a woman. The light careful steps suggesting she has some sort of combat training, probably kick boxing or Tae Bo to keep fit, he thought with a purely mental snort of derision. At least his new neighbour wasn’t going to be stomping across the hardwood floors. Here’s hoping she also didn’t have a predilection for screamy metal and maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Before they could move into the living area and see him paused in their doorway he continued his painful shuffle to his own door, one arm curled around his ribs, and slipped silently though his own door. Shutting it noiselessly behind himself.

If he hadn’t happened to pass her door when she was moving in, Matt wouldn’t have known the apartment was now occupied. She was either almost silent in her movements or she was never in the building at the same times he was, not that that was often between work and well, _work_. It was three weeks before there was any further indication of her presence. It was nearing lunchtime on a snowy Sunday when Matt was jerked out of a restless sleep after moving oddly, jarring the stab wound in his leg that last nights thug had gotten in. He lay in bed for long minutes, trying to breath through the pain. As his heart rate started to approach something like normal he started hearing something from next door. The burble of water moving through the pipes, socked shuffling steps moving across carpet, soft humming. The mystery neighbour was home. Matt lay in bed for another few minutes, listening to her move around her space. Ten minutes later he realised he was still laying there listening to the woman next door. With a huff at his admittedly stalkery behaviour, he pushed himself out of bed and limped into the shower. Time to get ready for the day. 

Standing under the hot, heavy flow of water until it started to run without the smell of copper from his still weeping leg wound Matt went through the contents of his fridge and realised he would need to do a food run if he was going to eat today. After stumbling out of the shower and into clothes, he slid on his glasses, collected his stick and locked up the apartment behind himself. As he passed the wooden door for next door he could hear the woman inside softly singing to herself, it was a song he vaguely recognised as from that musical that everyone was raving about. Jefferson? Or Burr? Or Hamilton? Whatever, it was named after one of the founding fathers and enough people had been humming and singing it to themselves in the last few weeks that he would gladly never hear another note from it again. 

What was meant to be a quick trip to the bodega on the end of the block took almost an hour between last nights snow and ice, his leg wound, and a soccer mom trying to help the _poor blind man_ navigate last night's snow and ice that actually just complicated the whole trip. Why couldn't people understand that even with a disability that did not mean he could do things for himself? In an extremely poor mood, freezing, and his leg throbbing, he half stumbled his way up the stairs. His mood further deteriorated when he made it to his floor and realised his neighbour had her door open, the air flow across his skin was different, and was happily singing something from that infernal musical while she cleaned her main room, the smell of vinegar and bi-carb following the air.

Without even meaning to he halted in her doorway and frowned into the room.

"Love doesn't descriminate between the sinners and the saints." She crooned, the words coming straight at him.

"I hate this song." He replied. In truth he didn't even know what the song was, it was an automatic response more to do with the extremely pissy mood than anything else.

And then she laughed at him! The incongruous sound startled him enough that he took a second to rewind the interaction in his head and realised that the lyrics were _his words_. With that realisation he cringed.  If those were his words and what he had said were hers they were pretty shitty ones to have.

"Maybe we can find something we both like then." He could hear the smile in her words. "I'm Mary."

"Matt." This was not going well. He had hardly been able to force the word out between his clenched teeth, between his embarrassment, the chill that had set in on the way back from the store and the throb from the stab wound.

"Did you want to come in? I have some coffee made?" At least she was doing better with this then he was. "It looks like you could use it and get of that leg for a bit."

"No thanks." He turned and made his way to his apartment as quickly as he could. How had she known that his leg was hurt? 

For the next week he did everything in his power to avoid her, including sleeping at the office on the Monday of the next week. Until Foggy came in Tuesday morning, realised he had slept there and sent him home to shower. He was on their shared landing when Mary threw her door open.

"So you're still alive." Her voice was flat. "You avoiding me or just even more of a workaholic then I am?"

"How did you know my leg was hurt?" He asked instead, he wasn't going to answer her question, it was too embarrassing to admit that he had been avoiding her.

"I could feel it. Just like I can feel that you are more than you seem." She answered almost hesitantly. That was giving a lot away to someone who had been nothing but rude to her.

"Feel how?" Matt really wasn't good at this. Get him to talk to someone he had no emotional stake in and he was golden, but this? Someone who was meant to be the perfect person for him? How was he meant to do it? How could he ask someone to accept him _and_ Daredevil?

"I can feel vibrations and I'm not saying anything else out in the hallway where anyone else can hear. So either come in or I'll follow you into your apartment."

"There is noone else on the floor but come to mine." There was no way he was giving up a home ground advantage.

"Let me grab my keys." She disappeared back inside. Matt could hear her moving papers around before reappearing.

"Lead the way." She waved a hand in the direction of his door.

Opening his door, Matt led her inside, tossing his keys and glasses on the entry table and hung his jacket and stick up.

"Look, I have spent some time around people that aren't exactly chatty but you gotta give me something. If you don't want to explore this whole soulmate thing then fine, just tell me and I'll be gone." She started as soon as the door closed behind her. "It wouldn't be the first time I've disappeared cause I wasn't wanted." She mumbled, he was probably not meant to have heard that.

"I don't not want to explore this, but it wouldn't be safe for you." Really that was the root of Matt's problem. Who would agree to get into a relationship with someone who was ultimately going to hurt them?

"Trust me, I can look after myself. And I might even want to help Daredevil if you were looking for a hand." God this girl apparently couldn't help throwing shit out there. "I've seen you coming back on night when I couldn't sleep."

How had he not noticed the eyes on him? Thinking about he, he couldn't feel her eyes on him now. The only indication of her presence the soft sounds of her shifting weight and slow steady breath.

"Why can't I feel you?" He asked softly. It was to much to think that she would be ok with all of him.

"I've had some training but it could also be part of me. I can't just feel vibrations, I can manipulate them." Her voice half lost in thought.

"I got my abilities from a chemical accident, that what happen to you?" He had asked for so much from her, maybe he had to give something of himself back.

"I figured as much. I remember you from the orphanage and the stories the other kids told. Mine was from dormant genetics that were woken last year. Or at least that's what they were able to figure out before I ran." He could hear the loss in her voice. What ever she ran from had meant something to her and its loss was still strongly felt.

"You were at the orphanage?" He decided to leave the rest of the sentence alone.

"On and off until I left at 16. We weren't there at the same time for very long and you are a couple of years older than me so no shared classes." This was something she was willing to talk about.

"I don't remember, I'm sorry. There were a few Marys." He was wracking his brain for her, even though they had obviously never exchanged words while there.

"I only answered to Skye."

That got a laugh from him in rememberance, the name meaning for than Mary.

"You were always in trouble for getting into the computers." He smiled, glad that he was able to place her.

"Yup." She popped the p, sounding younger than she had at any other point in their interactions. Obviously happy that he had remembered something about her. "But it all worked out. I have a job in IT at Stark Industries in Manhattan so its all good." The pride she held in making something of herself shone.

"Did you want to get dinner tonight?" He asked tentitavely. Maybe this could work. "I want to talk further but I have to get back to work."

"Sure. I'm working from home today so just come knock when your ready." The smile in her voice was obvious. "I'll let you get to it." She made her way to and out the door.

The smile on Matt's face lasted through the day, to Foggy's horror, and through the successful dinner. Three nights later Daredevil was joined by Quake and Hell's Kitchen's criminals were getting a lot fewer lucky hits in.


	2. Skye's flight

Skye ran. She saw the fear and judgment in the team's eyes and she ran from it. She tried to keep her heart out of it but she had been through so much with them in the last two years that the it couldn't be helped. The pain of her heartbreaking was almost enough to drown out the pain of the fractures her vibrations caused. She took nothing more with her than what she could easily carry. Slipping out of the base in the early morning. No one would miss her, they would probably be glad to see the back of her.

For two months she stumbled her way through the small backwater towns of mid- and eastern- America. After picking up a few white hat contracts, and a few black, she bought a new van with the name the nuns had given to her. The only person at SHIELD who had known that name was dead at Ward's hands and even if it was in a file somewhere, her hatred of it would be right next to it. She had left enough breadcrumbs to suggest she had made her way back to LA, what they would assume was familiar ground for her even though she had only been in the city a few months before being picked up by SHIELD. She may have trusted the team with her life, but she had never trusted them with her past. At least not beyond the basics. New York was actually the closest thing she had to a home ground. In the last week she had been thinking of heading that way and settling down for the winter. Maybe try and find more stable work. Create a life for herself outside all of the weird and wacky she had been stuck in for so long now.

Before she had even realised that she had made the decision her van was pointed towards the city  that never sleeps and a handful of tabs of job adverts were open on her new laptop. Job hunting without a permanent address was always tricky but in this city at least she could put the orphanage's address down without too many problems. It was a dark late October evening when she pulled her van into the alley behind a 24 hour diner with woefully unprotected Wi-Fi on the edge of Hell's Kitchen. The evening before she had seen an ad for an entry level IT grunt job at Stark Industries: Manhattan. She may not have a fancy degree but SI had never particularly cared if you could do the job, so she dropped her resume in the best way to get noticed, hacking the head of Cyber Security's email. After the quick hack she curled up in her two sleeping bags and quickly fell asleep, safe in the knowledge of her anonymity in the bustling city.

The next two days were spent dropping a few other resumes at other medium to large firms across the five boroughs and lining up a quick contract to test the security of a law firm that had been having trouble with DOS attacks. Her nights were spent wandering into industrial or abandoned areas of the outer boroughs to practice with her new-found abilities. Enough to start learning but never so much that it would set of any seismometers, it was an ongoing test of her control.

On the morning of her third day back in the city, she woke to an invitation to interview at SI for the next day. Obviously she had caught someone's attention. The email outlined an entry level position in their cyber security division that was normally only offered to recent post-grads. With the need to impress the HR and Cyber people that would be interviewing her, Skye spent her morning trolling through thrift stores in Brooklyn and Queens for appropriate business attire. By lunch time she had a pretty snazzy, if three years out of main fashion, business suit and a cute pair of ballet flats that would serve. The next stop was a hairdressers to get the bottom four inches of her hair trimmed off, she hadn't bothered to look after it since her flight from SHIELD, leaving it glossy and reaching half way down her shoulder blades.

The next morning dawned frosty but bright, winter was definitely starting to set into the city. A stop at one of the prolific Starbucks for a diabetically sweet coffee and she was off. The interview went well and she stepped out of interview room with an offer to join the team. She should have felt overjoyed, the chance to work at SI was life changing, except Tim (her possible new boss) had mentioned a background check. She knew she wasn't going to pass it and by the time she made it to the lobby she was already thinking about which road out of the city she would take. So wrapped up in her own worried she was on the floor before she had even realised that she had collided with another woman trying to enter the lift Skye was exiting.

"I'm so sorry!" Skye looked up into one of the last faces she ever expected to see, Maria Hill. "Agent Hill?"

"Skye, right?" The older woman reached a hand down to help her off the cold marble floor. "What are you doing here?"

"I was interviewing for a job." Skye didn't know how often the other woman talked to Coulson, but she did know that the minute she walked out of the building Maria would be on the phone with him. "Please, don't tell Coulson where I am." The words tumbled out.

Maria shot a look around the buzzing lobby, grabbed Skye's elbow and directed her out of a side door. Skye was dragged down a block and a half and gently pushed into a small hipster coffee shop.

"You can't say that name in that building." Maria waved the bewildered woman to a seat and went to order them both coffee, there was obviously a story here and she needed to know if it was going to blow up in her own, Coulson's, the Avenger's, or Skye's face.

After collecting the overpriced brews Maria returned to the table that Skye was still quietly sitting at. "Tell me what's going on." It was an order.

"I left SHIELD and it wasn't on the best of terms. I'm just trying to start over. I had a job interview with Cyber Security but I'm not going to be able to take it cause of the background checks." As the words chased each other out of her mouth she realised that she hadn't had a non-work or commercial conversation with another person in months. Apparently the story needed to be told. Even the little that had been let escape had made her feel better.

"Go back to the beginning. Why did you leave?" Maria knew what had happened in Puerto Rico but she wanted to get Skye's take on the situation.

"Something happened a few months ago and they wanted to lock me away because of it. I didn't do anything! But they are scared of me now and I just couldn't live like that." The words caught in her throat as tears gathered in her eyes. The team had basically been family and she had lost everything again.

"And you shouldn't have to." Maria knew what it was like to be hated by the people that were supposed to love and support you. "I won't tell anyone you are here and I can help with the background check. Coulson only every had good things to say about you and I don't see that having changed that much." She also knew that the man hated himself for having driven Skye away.

"Really? Oh my god! Thank you!" If the other woman wasn't quiet as intimidating as she was, Skye might have even hugged her.

"I'll get it all sorted out. What name are you using and where are you staying? I'll get the updated paperwork to you in a day or two."  Maria dug a pen and paper out of her winter coat as she waited for the information. When it wasn't forthcoming she raised a single enquiring eyebrow at the other woman.

A red blush stained Skye's cheeks, "I'm um, not really staying anywhere. I wasn't sure how long I would be in the city so I have a um a van..." She let the words trail off in embarrassment.

"Ok, then how about an email or phone number and I'll let you know when the papers are ready to be picked up."

"Yeah, sure." Skye rattled off her the information Maria needed to get the job finalised and they both gathered up their coats to go their separate ways.

As she pushed open the door Maria turned back. "There is a building in Hell's Kitchen that has a cheap apartment open. You should think about taking it, New York gets cold in winter." The words were as nonchalant as Maria could make them. She knew who else lived in that apartment building and the two young idiots might be able to keep each other from getting killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all.  
> I hope you enjoyed this follow up. Originally it was going to go all the way through to the same place as the first chapter but I felt this was a more interesting story to tell.  
> If people are interested I might write a follow up with SHIELD catching up to Skye and maybe mix the avengers in. Not sure. If it is something you would like to read shoot me a comment and I will see if anything comes to me.  
> Best,  
> Celt.


End file.
